Leafy Lady

I had to make a very quick card this week for a friend who is about to go off on an exciting trekking holiday on the Inca Trail to celebrate a special birthday. I decided to use one of my favourite stamps Mollie from Beeswax again - a variation on a card I posted a while ago.

Sadly I couldn't get a great picture of the card because it had to be delivered the next day and the light wasn't great.

I stamped Mollie in purple Versafine and then covered her with Eclipse masking tape. I obvously didn't cut it accurately enough, because she ended up with a bit of a halo that I had to try and ink afterwards - very tricky and not entirely successful - still you live and learn!! I masked a sun with a round post it note and then stippled various colours of Adirondack dye ink to try and give the impression of a sunset. In real life, you could see the blends of orange, yellow, pink and a little purple so much better. I overstamped with a loose cloud stamp from Beeswax in Malted Mauve Versamagic and then oversprayed with a very light coat of irridescent gold Glimmer Mist.  I added a sentiment, I think it from Serendipity Stamps, mounted the design onto a 8 x 8 card and finished off with some thin copper peel off border and Prima russet coloured ivy leaves - I love these!!

Leafy backgrounds

For some time I have been looking at the leaves of my plume poppy (macleaya cordata) thinking they would be good for a craft project, so when I saw the Branching Out article by Jo Capper Sandon about using real leaves to create backgrounds in the October issue of Craft Stamper magazine, I was reminded to have a go. As well as trying to spray over fir tree branches as Jo did, I picked some macleaya leaves to use as masks. The leaves of this plant can grow quite big. Here is a picture of one leaf with my hand to give you some idea of scale. This is a dramatic plant for its foliage, the underside of the the leaves is beautiful too, being soft and downy white like velvet.

I picked some smaller leaves and used them as masks with mostly adirondack dye inks to make some interesting backgrounds. Firstly I sponged two colours onto white card, before stippling with a darker colour to repeat masking with the frilly leaf edge all over the card. I am usually hopeless at doing backgrounds, so I was really pleased with the results. Each sheet took no more than 15 minutes. The first I did was on a Willow and Lake Mist background, stippled with a Colorbox pigment ink. This is greener in real life!

Next I did a bluey version, using Juniper and Pool for the sponged background and Stream for the stippling.

Last I did a red and orange version, with a Sunset Orange and Watermelon sponged background and Cranberry stippled leaf pattern.       

           

                                            

Now I just need to incorporate these designs into some interesting projects!